Patterns of Parenting during Adolescence: Perceptions of Adolescents and Parents

Article excerpt

Many studies of parenting during adolescence have examined the relations between parenting characteristics (e.g., parenting style and parental involvement) and adolescent outcomes (e.g., school achievement), but few studies have described the actual patterns of parenting during adolescence. The purposes of this study were (1) to explore differences in maternal and paternal parenting style and parental involvement, (2) to examine the differences between parents' and adolescents' perceptions of parenting style and parental involvement, and (3) to explore the changes in parenting style and parental involvement between the adolescents' ninth and twelfth grade years.

Despite the excellence of these research endeavors, most of these studies on the effects of parenting style and parental involvement on adolescent outcomes have one or more of three major limitations. First, differences between mothers' and fathers' parenting were not considered in many of the studies, although research has reported differences in adolescents' perceptions of their mothers and fathers and in the influences of mothers' and fathers' parenting practices on adolescent outcomes. For example, adolescents tend to link more emotional attributes to mothers and more rigid and formal attributes to fathers; Pipp, Shaver, Jennings, Lamborn, and Fischer (1985) and Youniss and Smollar (1985) found that adolescents' perceived their fathers to be authority figures who provided advice on practical matters and guidelines for behavior, whereas they perceived their mothers to be a combination of authority and equality, intimacy, and conflict. Less is known about maternal and paternal differences in parental involvement.

Second, many of the parenting studies during adolescence considered only adolescents' perceptions of parenting, although research has reported that adolescents' and parents' perceptions of family characteristics may be very different and may predict adolescent outcomes differently. …